Exhibition marks 850th anniversary of Becket’s murder in crypt of Canterbury cathedral
One of the most shocking chapters of medieval history, embracing royalty, power, sacrilege and bloodshed, is to be told through the UK’s first major exhibition on the life, death and legacy of Thomas Becket, opening at the British Museum this spring.
Its centrepiece is a stained glass window from Canterbury cathedral, the scene of the priest’s brutal murder by four knights loyal to King Henry II in 1170. The 6m-high window, originally one of 12 Miracle Windows created in the early 1200s, has never before left the cathedral nor been seen at eye level by the public.
